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On the continent he was the answerer of Salmasius, the vindicator of liberty against despotic power. "Learned foreigners of note," Phillips tells us, "could not part out of this city without giving a visit" to his uncle. Aubrey even exaggerates this flocking of the curious, so far as to say that some came over into England only to see Oliver Protector and John Milton.
After the execution of the king appeared another famous attack upon the Puritans, Defensio Regia pro Carlo I, instigated by Charles II, who was then living in exile. It was written in Latin by Salmasius, a Dutch professor at Leyden, and was hailed by the Royalists as an invincible argument. By order of the Council of State Milton prepared a reply.
The English government from 1649 to 1660 is known as the Commonwealth. The two most striking figures of the time were Oliver Cromwell, who in 1653 was styled the Lord Protector, and John Milton, who was the Secretary for Foreign Tongues. One of the greatest of European scholars, a professor at Leyden, named Salmasius, had written a book attacking the Commonwealth and upholding the late king.
Salmasius, the opponent of Milton, was made perpetually uneasy by a similar thorn. Milton himself seems to have suffered from a similar cause, for he evinces so much hostility to the female sex, that no other reason would so naturally account for it. He exclaims,
Had the great Salmasius been still alive, I believe, says M. Barbeyrac, that with all his secret jealousy against the author censured, he would have found himself greatly disappointed in his expectations from John De Felde's project: never was any thing so wretched.
The highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is Polybius, who was contemporary with Scipio, at a period when Roman discipline was most perfect. A fragment from his sixth book gives considerable information. A chapter of Livy the eighth is also very much prized. Salmasius and Lepsius have also written learned treatises.
The range of Sarpi's friendly relations was amazing. They embraced statesmen, churchmen, scholars, scientific investigators, diplomatists in every part of Europe, and among these Galileo and Lord Bacon, Grotius and Mornay, Salmasius and Casaubon, De Thou and Sir Henry Wotton, Bishop Bedell and Vossius, with a great number of others of nearly equal rank.
Augustus Buchner calls Grotius the greatest ornament of his time, the oracle of human wisdom, and the wonder of the age. Lewis du Moulin comparing Grotius with Salmasius , allows Grotius much more judgment, but gives to Salmasius a greater extent of knowledge.
The mystery which long surrounded the authorship of Eikon Basilike lends a literary interest to Milton's share in that controversy, which does not belong to his next appearance in print. Besides, his pamphlets against Salmasius and Morus are written in Latin, and to the general reader in this country and in America inaccessible in consequence.
Salmasius, who had been Grotius's admirer, and who in the latter part of his life did all he could to destroy his reputation, never spoke of The rights of war and peace but with the greatest contempt: which was the more shocking; as, in his dispute with the English on the right of Kings, he every where copies Grotius, and when he departs from him is sure to blunder: with which Boëclerus has justly reproached him.
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